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Ancient Texts and Modern Fiction of Roman Transgression

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Ancient Texts and Modern Fiction of Roman Transgression Bard College Bard Digital Commons Senior Projects Spring 2016 Bard Undergraduate Senior Projects Spring 2016 Painted Palimpsests: Ancient Texts and Modern Fiction of Roman Transgression Fraiser Hays Kansteiner Bard College, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.bard.edu/senproj_s2016 Part of the Classical Literature and Philology Commons, and the Fiction Commons This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 License. Recommended Citation Kansteiner, Fraiser Hays, "Painted Palimpsests: Ancient Texts and Modern Fiction of Roman Transgression" (2016). Senior Projects Spring 2016. 278. https://digitalcommons.bard.edu/senproj_s2016/278 This Open Access work is protected by copyright and/or related rights. It has been provided to you by Bard College's Stevenson Library with permission from the rights-holder(s). You are free to use this work in any way that is permitted by the copyright and related rights. For other uses you need to obtain permission from the rights- holder(s) directly, unless additional rights are indicated by a Creative Commons license in the record and/or on the work itself. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Painted Palimpsests: Ancient Texts and Modern Fiction of Roman Transgression Senior Project Submitted to The Division of Language & Literature and Arts Of Bard College by Fraiser Kansteiner Annandale-on-Hudson, NY May 2016 1 2 Acknowledgments Like the Caesars invoked in the proem of Ovid’s Fasti, there are many people in my life without whom this work would not have been possible. First and foremost, I would like to thank my brilliant advisers, Lauren Curtis, of the Bard Classical Studies Department, and Joseph O’Neill, of the Bard Written Arts Department. With their extensive advice and editing, they helped me develop the fundamental shape, as well as the finer details of this project, and ensured that every section was as successful as the last. I would also like to thank my original Written Arts adviser, Edie Meidav, who propelled my fiction forward and set in motion my literary career at Bard. Furthermore, I would like to thank Brad Morrow, Neil Gaiman, and Ben Hale, who taught me that ‘fantasy’ was not a dirty word, or even an accurate descriptor of genre. Similarly, I owe a great deal of thanks to Daniel Mendelsohn, Thomas Bartscherer, Carolyn Dewald, Diana DePardo-Minsky, and Rob Cioffi, all of whom encouraged and improved my budding classical education at Bard. Lastly, I owe a great deal of thanks to my parents and my peers, who provided the emotional support that kept me from lashing out in an invective rage during the arduous senior project process. To the boys at 9 Pine, the comrades at the C-Org, to Cyril, and to my loving partner, Charlotte, I have a great deal of thanks and appreciation to show over the next few weeks. Now that I am emerging, Cacus-like, from my academic cave, I hope to reciprocate all the love and support I’ve received throughout this year. 3 Table of Contents Introduction: What we write about when we write about Rome…………………………………………………………………….………………………...5 Transgressive Translations: Ovid’s Fasti, the Poetry of Catullus, and Petronius’ Satyricon…………………………………………………………………………………………..6 Elegant Transgressions: An Analytical Examination of Misbehavior and the Translation Process…..……………………………………………………………………………………….35 Ara Maxima: Fiction Inspired by Roman Literary Transgression…………………………………………………………………………………….77 Works Cited……………………………………………………………………………………….........129 4 Introduction: What we write about when we write about Rome Rome looms large over every facet of my project, at times a city, at others, a force of history, but regardless of what meanings Rome accrues, it has consistently acted as the polestar by which I have charted my entire academic course at Bard. No facet of Rome is immune from my interest, but Roman literature, and Latin translation in particular, are the areas of classical study where I have repeatedly forged connections with authors and texts that transcend the two thousand year divide between Archaic Rome and the modern world. Even before the gates of Senior Project flung wide, I knew that I wanted to translate and dissect Roman literature, and also to tackle that literary tradition for the purpose of my own prose. While the thematic crux of my project has evolved over time, I have managed to successfully honor my original ambitions. It may be clumsy to suggest that Rome was exceptionally modern for an ancient civilization, but the emphasis on distinct authorial voices and the contexts in which authors such as Catullus, Ovid, and Petronius were writing have certainly kept the Roman literary tradition relevant for well-over a dozen centuries. The wealth of criticism and introspection, as well as the comfort with profanity and satire displayed by these Roman writers, combine to make a powerful case for the appeal of ancient Roman literature in a world where post-modernism has become the norm. Many of my favorite pieces of Roman literature are also the nastiest; the most transgressive. Furthermore, these pieces, which originally attracted me due to their disaffection, further serve as exemplars of what I consider to be exceptionally modern voices in Roman literature. Transgression, it seems, engenders a sense of modernity, and this revelation marked the final maturation of my project’s theme. On the topic of Roman misbehavior, I have composed and ordered, in simple terms, selected translations from Ovid’s Fasti, Petronius’ Satyricon, and the collected poetry of 5 Catullus. This section will be followed by an analytical examination of transgression and translation in the works from the first section of the project. In addition to parsing the texts I have translated, this section also lays out a blueprint for what I hope to have achieved with my final prose piece. In the remaining section of my project, I have written an extended short-story inspired by Fasti 1.543-84, rooted in the myth of Hercules and Cacus. Overall, my translations served as a means to familiarize myself with the content and the language of the writers I would be emulating, before I began the writing process. By reading these authors in the original Latin, I sought to develop a sense of the linguistic conventions they were establishing and eroding through their texts. Furthermore, this allowed me to examine more closely the etymological and aetiological resonances found in these texts, and in my prose, I sought convey a similar sense of tradition through diction. In my fiction piece, I have attempted to reconcile a Romantic view of the natural landscape with a monstrous narrative voice. Throughout my translational and critical work, the myth of Hercules and Cacus repeatedly surfaced. I adore this sort of tale about the mythical struggle between heroes and monsters. In a sense, this narrative condenses everything I find externally appealing about the classical world into a single story cycle. It is a primal depiction of gods and demigods clashing over the civilization of the world. Action, mythology, and existential questions of place all surface within the boundaries of this oft-repeated story. Borrowing from the tradition of reinterpretation so central to Roman mythology, I sought to render this story in a distinctly modern context, inverting the perspective in order to examine the violation of legitimacy, humanity, and religion as a means to create meaning and place within the world. 6 I. Transgressive Translations: Ovid’s Fasti, the Poetry of Catullus, and Petronius’ Satyricon 7 Proem—Fasti 1.1-62 Times with their causes, divided throughout The Latin year, and stars slipping below the Earth, and rising, I shall sing. Receive this work With placid expression, Caesar Germanicus, And straighten the course of my timid vessel, 5 And by this gesture, do not spurn a light honor. Behold! And attend the proper rites dedicated to Your divinity. You will recognize ceremonies Plucked from ancient chronicles, and by what Purpose each day is fatefully recorded. Here you 10 Shall discover the festal days of your house; often, You will read of your father, of your grandfather, And they things they carry, marking the painted Calendar. You will also curry favor with your brother, Drusus. Let others sing about the arms of Caesar: We 15 Of Caesar’s altars, and as many days as he added to Our rites. Nod in assent at my effort to laud your Own, and banish from my heart this timorous fear. 8 Give to me thou quiet self, and grant my poem Strength. Genius halts and sinks with your face. 20 The page stirs before the learned princeps about To pass judgment, as if sent to be read by Apollo Claros. Indeed, we felt the eloquence of Your cultivated voice, supporting the affairs of timid Men with civil arms, and we know, when passion 25 Conveys you to our art, how great your river of talent Flows. If it is permitted and right, poet, steer the poets’ Reins, that you heap happiness upon the whole year With auspices. Times were being distributed by the founder of 30 The city: He resolved that there should be twice Five months in his year. Certainly, you knew arms More than stars, Romulus, and conquering Your neighbors was a greater care for you. And by your rationale indeed, Caesar, you might 35 9 Have moved him, and his slight ought to be corrected. As it was sufficient, he ordained that the time For an infant to appear from its mother’s womb Was enough to mark a year. For just as many months Following the funeral of her husband, see the melancholy 40 Wife uphold the widow’s house. Thus, gowned Quirinus viewed these things with care, when he Gave the rough people the laws of the year.
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